Dreams Into Journey

"Ok." Gark nods at Valentia "whenever you are ready". 

He waits with the others for a bit to give her a chance to scarf down her food before heading out toward the mayor's house.

The group meets up at the Pick and Tap and has a hearty breakfast. Afterwards, they make their way to the mayor's house.

The mayor's house is in the middle of town. It is a larger, two-story building with a cobblestone-walled lower floor and a wooden upper floor. It is surrounded by a sizable stone brick wall with vines growing here and there, and topped with some iron spines. The only entrance to the grounds is a wrought-iron gate. Beyond a gate is a pathway that leads to the front doors, bracketed by waist-high hedges, which branches off to give access other parts of the property.

Waiting at the gate is Sargeant Forscal, "Glad you could make it! Come with me, we're almost ready to start."

He leads the party inside. The interior is very ornately decorated. Almost every flat surface has something opulent on top of it and the walls seem to be covered by some sort of piece of art or another.

The party follows Sargeant Forscal upstairs - where much of the same can be seen - and into a big room where multiple guardsmen line the walls. In the center of the room is a large rectangular table with a slightly smaller piece of parchment marked with small flags. Standing by the table is a a stout man with greying hair, wearing very eye-catching clothes, and a woman in higher quality armor with her hair tied back.

On the way in through this blatant display of wealth, contrasting deeply with the injured minors he saw the other day, Oswin will amuse himself by tilting paintings so they're not straight and moving the little art pieces around just a little so they're off-center, that sort of thing.

Once they get in, he'll remain near the doorway, behind the rest of the group craning his neck to see the parchment.

Lia will nod to the guards as she enters, but otherwise wait for the important-looking individuals to start things off.

Gark looks around and wonders under his breath “hmm. Wonder how the mayor of a small mining town gets all of this finery...”

"It seems everyone is present, I see no harm in starting," The well-dressed man starts speaking. "For our new arrivals, I am Glareth Adlaran, the mayor of this quiet town. We are here because there is a credible threat posed by the Alpha Jackals. Captain Caena, you can take it from here."

"Thank you, Mayor Adlaran."  Caena replies, "From circumstances of their latest ambush, and from what we learned from one of the ambushers, we are very certain that the Alpha Jackals are going to start something big within a couple of days. We are hoping to get in ahead of it."

"From what we hear from our new guest in the gaol, is that they plan on a big invasion of Kohmstead. He's not giving a reason; whether he knows and isn't telling, or doesn't know is immaterial. We are operating under the assumption that he's misleading us as to, at least the timing of the attack. So, if we move out as soon as possible, we could catch them off-guard."

"He tells us - as much as his word is worth - is that they have as stronghold around four miles east of where the latest ambush had occurred. That would place them at the edge of the Therris Badlands." She points down at the map and traces her fingers to and from the indicated spots.

"Everything clear so far? Any questions?"

 "I went back to where we got ambushed.  The only tracks I saw came from the west.  Maybe I missed the tracks coming from the east." Gark shrugs "Maybe he's not telling the truth."

Oswin will look around at his companions, "I assume you're asking us to join, but there are only 5 of us. How many soldiers are you bringing and how many of them are there?"

Andivus nervously stands there looking around at everything in the way in.  He reminds himself that strategies and planning is much different than it is at home.  But he blurts out anyways “THE CHILDREN ARE HAVING DREAMS.....”taking a moment to clear his throat “Excuse me, but the children came to speak with me yesterday.  They knew of the devil horse and seemed to know about him for much longer than we have.  They say they share dreams, the devils come in their sleep and declare the Overlord is coming.”  He looks around nervously once more “Maybe it’s coincidence, but maybe it’s connected.  They may be one in the sans... or these bandits could be a distraction to leave the town vulnerable.  You should reach out to your priests and seers to begin setting up wards.  The demons will be much bigger threat.”

"Yes, what are you asking of us?"  Lia puts in with a nod to her companions.  "Are you wanting us to attack this stronghold, scout the place, or do something else?"

"That actually makes more sense..." Caena replies to Gark's findings. "Why make your own stronghold in the middle of the badlands, where there's a sizable lizardfolk village already existing in the marshes?"

"I highly doubt the lizardfolk would've just let those bandit have the run of the place, they view that particular bog as sacred. I wonder what happened to them?" Mayor Aldaran muses.

"Returning to the topic at hand, we're not asking you to take on the entirety of the bandits." Forscal responds to  " All of us, here, and about 60 more will be making a lot of noise to draw out as many as we can while you sneak in and try and take you whomever passes as a leader. Unfortunately we don't know what their numbers are... Fellow would not give any number at all, vague or otherwise."

After Andivus' sudden outburst and subsequent calmer explanation, some of the men are quite disturbed and low mutters are heard throughout the room. As the noise nearly make it's crescendo, Forscal lets out a loud, sharp whistle.

"While your concerns are warranted, due to the strange happenings as of late, it is far too early to be coming to those sorts of conclusions. But, if there is a connection, there may be evidence. Magic may do some amazing things, but I would imagine even magic that uses dreams has rules."

"As for your other concern, we are not taking our entire force to this fight. Also some of the townsfolk act as a militia. So the town isn't entirely without a defense."

"We are aiming to move out before midday. We are hoping to hit them before they even have a chance to sober up!" Caena announces. "If there is anything you need to take care of, do it now and meet up at the north gate."

After Caena finishes her last statement, most of the guards start clearing out of the room.

Looking to the others, "Seems like we're heading out, anyone need anything before we go?"

Gark looks around at everyone before chiming in "One thing to discuss is compensation..." and letting the last word trail off

Andivus nods as he is ready to go.

Lia pauses at the mention of payment and glances back to see what the reaction of the ones in charge will be.

Valentia adds to Forscal's answer to Andivus by saying. "Speaking of magic, I have a spell that will let me be aware of the presence of that creature if we ever cross paths with it again. Anyways, I am, too, ready to go. The only thing I wished to take care of was already done yesterday."

"Practical, aren't you? Considering you lot are going to be in the belly of the beast, per se, we'll be giving 25 gold each from the town's coffers on your return." Aldaran replies to Gark. "Plus anything you happen to find in there is yours as well. 'Finders, keepers,' and all that. We just want them out of our hair."

"If there isn't anything else, let's go! We're burning sunlight!" Caena says in a stern tone.

"Godspeed!" The mayor bids.

At the town's gate, a small army of guardsmen in heavier armor have gathered. The air is unmistakably tense and there is some chatter among the ranks.

"That'll be enough talking, for now!"  Caena calls out breaking the banter. "We all knew this was going to happen at some point in time. Whether it came sooner or later doesn't matter!"

"We are making for the Delkor Marshes. Fortunately, we are not going very fa, it seems they are holed up in the local lizardfolk village. Our role is to make ourselves as conspicuous as possible. A small force will infiltrate during the chaos and go for whoever is in charge."  She motions to the party.

"What happened to the lizardfolk?" A voice in the crowd rings out.

"We... don't know and we will not speculate on their whereabouts. But, err on the side of caution and assume they have been absorbed by the bandits until proven otherwise."

"We know our roles. Let's move and hopefully they have not recovered from their hangovers. by the time we get there"

The party and the town guard start moving through west through the woods. It takes two hours of travel before the environment starts to change from a coniferous forest.

Forscal turns to the party, "We're getting close, you will need to split off from here. The village is about a mile and-a-half west of here. How you approach it is up to you."

"The south side of the village faces a hill; you won't have much trouble approaching, but will be more visible. The north will take you through the marsh itself; you will have an easier time staying hidden, but the marsh is waist high and there are some dangerous animals in the waters."

"We are going to initiate the attack in a half-hour, see you on the other side."

“I say we take the entrance from the hill, they see us and react.  Making it easier for the other men.   What does everyone else think?”

Gark looks around to see what everyone else is going to say.  If the discussion seems to be pointing toward the hill, he will just nod and say "makes sense"

If opinions are split, he'll chip in with his "The hill being visible won't matter once the guards start attacking, all eyes will be that way."

"I'm pretty sure the idea is for the guards to make it easier for us, giving them time to react isn't necessarily a good idea. That being said, I have no desire to trudge through the swamp and be tired and or injured when we arrive, so, hill sounds good to me." Oswin looks for consensus from the others.